“He was banished.”
Kar was still doubled over, but Inos kept her face schooled anyway, hiding her distaste. Banished—for a single refusal, or because he had been too friendly with the visiting royalty? Poor Petkish and his tiny ginger beard! Either way, he had learned a hard lesson.
Azak couldn’t banish Inos, because she was Rasha’s guest, but if he learned that she had faked a lame horse in order to avoid the sight of blood, then she would no longer be one of the boys. She would be back doing flower arrangements with Kade.
“You were misinformed, Highness,” Inos said. “My horse did pick up a stone. Had I known I would be doubted, I should have saved it as evidence. Surely you are too much of a gentleman to tell tales?”
Kar completed his deliberate inspection of the second hoof, then straightened up. He rested one hand on Sesame’s withers and turned to Inos with quiet amusement.
“I always tell tales,” he said. “I tell everything. I am his chief of security. Did you not know?”
“No. I didn’t.”
Kar shrugged. “He trusts me. I am the only man he trusts.” Inos felt very much aware of being alone in an empty desert with this smiling, baby-faced enigma. She had never spoken with Kar before, and he made her scalp pucker. She wished the rest of the hunt would come into view. “The only one he trusts completely, you mean? He must trust some of the others somewhat?”
“How can you trust anyone somewhat?”
“Well.”
Kar’s smile widened. He moved around to check Sesame’s rear feet. “Why do you wish to speak with him?”
Ah! So this was business? She should have guessed! Obviously the straightforward approach was suspect and she was supposed to do things in devious ways. Faking a lame pony might be the correct form of address when seeking audience, and now Azak had sent Kar to open negotiations.
“I wanted his advice, as one monarch to another.”
“Why should he give you advice?”
Nonplussed, Inos snapped, “Why should he not?”
Kar was scratching at the hoof with the quillon of his dagger and he spoke without raising his voice at all. “You are in league with the bitch sorceress. She brought you here for some purpose of her own. Your aunt spends half her days drinking tea with her, spreading dissent and sedition among the women of the palace.”
“I bear no malice toward Arakkaran!”
“What evidence do you offer, apart from your own word?”
Idiot! She should have expected this suspicion. She had not been thinking about local politics at all, only her own.
This was not the Impire. It most certainly was not Kinvale, and she had been playing games. Azak might indulge in sport, but he would never play games. ”Do I look like a threat to Arakkaran?”
Kar straightened and regarded her with less smile than usual. “You look like an imperial spy.”
“That is rubbish! I no more look like an imp than you do.”
“There is a scent of war in the wind.”
“Yes, there is. The imps stole my kingdom!”
“So you have been telling the women. You have also been asking questions,” Kar said softly. “Strange questions. You asked how the sultan is chosen, for example.”
“Yes! How is the sultan chosen? That can’t be a state secret, yet no one will tell me. Azak has many older brothers. Why him? In Krasnegar, and in the Impire—”
“In Zark it is done otherwise.” Kar bent to the fourth leg. ”By election.”
“Very democratic!”
“Yes. When a sultan dies, then the imam calls the princes to assembly. ”
“Bishop. He asks who is to succeed. If more than one steps forward, the imam dismisses them. The next day he calls them, again.”
She felt sick. “Until there is only one claimant?”
“Exactly.”
Election by elimination? “And how many stepped forward with Azak?”
Kar completed his inspection and straightened. He was still smiling, if redder-faced than usual. “How many would you have expected”
“I think I understand.”
“That is good. Lead the mare around.”
“I’m sure she’s all right.”
“Do it! You never know who may be watching.”
Did he mean mundane eyes or occult? Inos led Sesame around in a small circle, wondering if the sorceress had driven the whole palace mad or if all Zark was like this. Even Kade had become strangely tight-lipped and jumpy lately.
“She is fit to ride,” Kar said. “The previous sultan—”
“Zorazak. Our grandfather, of blessed memory.”
“And how—”
“Extreme old age.” Djinn eyes darkened in bright sunlight, and Kar’s were now the color of dried blood. “Very sad.” Despite the brutal heat, Inos shivered. Now she knew why no one had been willing to discuss this. “How old?”
“Almost sixty. His passing was slower than we expected, but quite painless.”
“I am greatly relieved to hear that.” Honest as a djinn! Now she knew what it meant.
Kar nodded. “The sultan said to tell you that you have made your point, and your continuing presence on these hunts is no longer necessary.” The smile grew more loving. “And I give you some advice from myself. Stay out of politics, Inosolan. They are an art too dangerous for women—even queens regnant!”
Slender and lithe, Kar strode across to the gray, which had hardly moved a hoof since he left it. He vaulted into the saddle without using the stirrups and instantly was gone, cantering away over the gravel, leaving Inos standing beside Sesame. Sesame snickered loudly.
2
Alone and early, Inos returned to the stables; there were no guards available to escort her. With a snort of indifference, she gave Sesame a farewell pat and set off by herself, striding along a well-known route through halls and cloisters, shady groves and narrow short-cut alleys. She moved within a glow of anger that burned worse than the sunlight, that seemed to be still increasing. Perhaps it was easier to be angry on foot than on horseback.
She had been a complete imbecile! A child! She had charged into Arakkaranian high society like a mad bull, expecting all those royal princes to change their entire way of thinking just because a slip of a girl could ride a horse—expecting the sultan himself to change!
She had been wrong and Kade had been right, and that hurt worst of all.
Imagine Azak at Kinvale? Impossible! Azak at Kinvale was unthinkable. Inosolan in Arakkaran was unthinkable, too. She must have seemed brash and wanton and insolent and . . . Ugh! Immature!
A queen must always think politically! She would remember that in future.
In a scorching open courtyard, about fifty small boys were doing sword drill under the raptor eyes of a couple of elderly family men. She swept by them, staying close to the wall, and no one paid any attention to her. Fifty more princes in training, fifty more arrogant, women-hating, pig-headed . . . Bah!
Rasha was absolutely right!
Now Inos had thrown away her chance to enlist an ally, a disinterested advisor. She would have to rely entirely on the kindly intentions of the sorceress and somehow she felt less inclined to trust that shape-changing old hag than she did to trust Azak, even if he did treat women like livestock and had murdered his grandfather. Anyway, that story had come from Kar, whom she trusted less than anyone.
Still, Mastery is made of mistakes, as Rap had always said, and she must try to learn from this one. She stalked along a cool arcade, hearing her bootsteps echo in odd patterns from the arches of the roof. The second day . . . That was where she had gone wrong. The audience with Azak, the riding of Evil, even the first day’s hunt—all those had been sound strategy. Her presence that first day could almost have been passed off as an accident. Exactly who had invited her to hunt again the next day she could not recall—one of the graybeards, she thought—but she should have declined. Politely, of course. Very gratefully . . . but declined. Then they might have come to her. Azak might have. Out of curiosity. Instead she had turned herself into an everyday spectacle, a curiosity instead of a marvel.
Do anything! she had vowed, do anything to recover her kingdom. And all she had done was play games and flutter eyelashes. Well—no more games!
But the first order of business must be to apologize to Kade and admit that she had been right. Grrr!
Inos swung around at the sound of feet running. One of the family men was chasing after her. She stopped and waited until he arrived, flushed and gasping in the heat. He was shorter than most, very youthful. He wore a scimitar and at least two daggers and an odd sort of conical cap that she had noticed before among the guards. His face was round and innocent, and very, very red.